A Right To Grieve
by sitabethel
Summary: Bakura tries to convince Ishizu to postpone Marik's birthday party. Sorta-thiefshipping (although Marik isn't really in the story). Rated T for language.


*****AN: I wrote this to be selfish and emo. I didn't really edit it, and I've been working multiple jobs this week so there are probably very stupid mistakes that I wouldn't notice even if I tried to edit it. Kintsukuroi is the art of taking broken pottery and "gluing" it back together using gold. I think that's a good way to describe Yami B.*****

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Ishizu Ishtar held the curtain away from her living room window as she watched Bakura walk up the road. She knew he wasn't really Bakura, but Marik never called him by any other name. He still looked like Bakura, or rather he looked like a jagged shard broken away from Ryou Bakura. White skin, white hair, same height, but everything looked sharper, fractured.

Ishizu remembered three years before when Marik looked at her with his jaw taunt and his hands balled into fists while explaining that he found a spell that would bring his old partner back from the Shadows. At first, Ishizu didn't understand _why_ Marik wanted Bakura's return. She assumed he wanted to offer the thief's spirit the same chance at redemption that Marik had found during Battle City; however, the true reason became clear the first time Ishizu saw them together. Marik grabbed Bakura's hand, and continued to stare at his sister, almost challenging her to protest.

She only stood and blinked, dumb and incapable of a response. She didn't know how to react. She knew how she _should have_ reacted, how the tomb keepers would want her to react, how her father would want her to react, but as she stood there and watched her brother, all she wanted to do was banish the emotional wall guarding his eyes. She wanted her baby brother to be happy, so she forced a smile even as Bakura scowled at Marik's hand and jerked his arm away.

Ishizu let the curtain drop and walked to the door. She didn't need her Millineum Necklace to know Bakura would visit. It was December, and it would be the third time Bakura came to her to argue. She opened the door and smiled. "I've been expecting you."

Bakura frowned. He watched Ishizu for a moment. "I decided to try diplomacy this year."

"A noble tactic, but I'm not sure it's in your nature to be diplomatic."

He shrugged. "I'll at least try my best not to throw a tea cup at you this time."

Her smile widened. "Speaking of tea, why don't you come inside and have a cup. I have it ready."

Bakura stepped inside, and she lead him to the kitchen. They sat across from each other as if in prep for a Duel - a tea cup in front of each of them. Ishizu poured for them both. "You know, this is becoming an odd family tradition."

A smirk twisted Bakura's face. "Maybe next year I'll bake scones and bring them over."

"To throw?"

Bakura took a sip from his cup. "Perhaps."

"Your foot's tapping."

"What?"

"Your foot. I can hear it tapping against the base of the table, and you're holding your cup so tightly that I'm beginning to think that you've confused my tea cup for the Pharaoh's throat. I know you don't want to be here, Bakura. It's okay, just yell at me, get it out of your system, throw the cup if you need to, and I'll see you two weeks from now for Marik's birthday party."

Bakura set the cup on the table and stilled his foot. He stared at Ishizu. "People think the two of you are different, but I've realized that you're a lot alike. Both of you are assholes, the only difference is that you're demure about it."

Ishizu drank her tea to excuse herself from replying. She was rather convinced that Bakura had just paid her a compliment disguised as an insult.

"Look." Bakura sighed, but it sounded more like a low growl. "Every year I try to get you to cancel Marik's birthday celebration, and every year you ignore me and do whatever the fuck you want anyway, so I propose a compromise. Have your damn party, but postpone it to the week after Marik's birthday."

Ishizu tilted her head, surprised. Bakura really was trying diplomacy. "And what will you do on Marik's birthday?"

"Nothing."

Ishizu shook her head. "That's no way for him to spend the day."

"Ishizu."

She started. He'd never used her name before.

He paused before speaking again. "Stop it. You need to stop it. Quit trying to force happiness down Marik's throat and let him be sad for a day."

"I don't _want_ him to be sad," Ishizu snapped, her tone harsher than she intended. "That's why I fly Yugi and his friends in from Japan every year. Marik needs to know he has friends, and to know he's love. He doesn't need to think about the past any longer."

"He has a right to grieve."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand. Company is good for him. Friends lift one's spirits and cast aside all the—"

"For _you_!" Bakura stood with both hands pressed against the table top. "Friends and planning parties is how _you _deal with your grief, but all it does is distract Marik from how he's really feeling and it's not good for him."

"I know his initiation was difficult, but what good will come from dwelling on the past? The past is a book. You close it and leave it on the shelf and let it be."

"You think this is about his initiation?" Bakura blinked, thoughtful. He sat back down as if considering something. "No, for the most part he's dealt with that."

"I don't . . . then why else would he be upset?"

Bakura frowned and looked away. "Ishizu, this makes twenty years since your mother passed away. He's sad for the same reason you're trying to use a party to forget why _you're_ sad."

Ishizu gasped at Bakura's words. She tried never to think about the day she lost her mother – instead focusing on the fact that it was the day she got a little brother. Maybe Bakura was right. Maybe she did act obstinate about Marik's birthday to avoid the other event the day marked.

Bakura sighed again. This time it was a weary, tired sound. He stared at his tea, but didn't touch it. "Obviously Marik never knew her, and he doesn't remember her like you and baldy do, but he still misses her. No one ever gets over it . . . losing their mother. Five years, twenty years, three-thousand and twelve years . . . it doesn't matter."

Ishizu's mouth hung open, she tried to close it but she felt paralyzed. A thought struck her and she shook away her shock in order to ask, "three-thousand and twelve years?"

Bakura nodded. He looked sad and for him to show any emotion was a strange thing to see. "Two months ago marked the day . . . the day that . . . I didn't even realize how upset I was, but Marik sensed it." Bakura's rueful expression softened and for the first time, Ishizu thought that he didn't look broken, or like a fragment; instead, he looked like pottery mended through kintsukuroi. "I was sitting in a chair and staring out the window and Marik put a blanket over my shoulders and he left me alone – he let me sit by myself the whole day so I could think . . . so I could understand my own emotions. Ever since I lost my village . . . I was so busy with revenge. I was so focused on my anger, that I never gave myself a day to grieve them. That night he just sat beside me with an arm around me and—"

Ishizu saw Bakura's eyes glisten. He blinked hard and quick until the effect disappeared and the ivory mask he wore to hide his emotions returned to his face. "And you know how I hate to owe that bastard anything, so I wanted to postpone his ridiculous farce of a party in order to return the favor." Bakura snorted. "Not that you'll see reason in any of this. Ishtars are inherently stubborn."

She felt tears in her own eyes, but blinked them away just as Bakura had. "One week? Then I can throw as elaborate a celebration as I want?"

"Tch, it's not like I've ever been able to stop you."

She raised a thin, well-groomed eyebrow. "And you'll participate and be nice to everyone?"

"Hell no. I'll sit in a corner and glare at them like I do every year. I hate all those bastards."

"I saw you playing cards with Ryou last year."

Bakura crossed his arms over his chest. "That's different, he's . . . less annoying. I can tolerate him in small doses."

"If you hate them so much, why do you go?"

He scowled. "Marik asks me to." A smirk overtook his face and he looked straight at Ishizu. "He can ask very nicely when he's in bed."

She somehow knew Bakura only said the last part to goad her, so she didn't respond. Instead she gave Bakura a sweet smile. "So next time you visit you'll bring scones?"

He growled, teeth clenched. "No. I was being facetious."

"Lemon scones would be nice."

"Weren't you listening?"

"And bring Marik. The three of us never visit enough."

Bakura finished his tea in a single gulp and stood. "You're an asshole. I'm going home now and fucking your brother."

Ishizu followed Bakura to the door. She was beginning to see why her brother argued with Bakura so much. There was a sporting sort of fun in the act. "I suppose I owe you an apology."

"For being an asshole?"

"For saying you couldn't be diplomatic."

"Go to hell."

She laughed as a wicked idea came to her, a way for her to victor in their parley. As Bakura reached for the doorknob, she circled her arms around him in a strong, inescapable, sister's embrace.


End file.
